Wilson Audio– Room Atrium 3.1, D111 (Audio Reference)
For the first time in a few years, the latest Wilson speakers will be present at the show, rather than off-site (and many miles away!). It will also be many listener’s first opportunity to hear speakers that have attracted a lion’s share of media attention over the last few years. With new distribution, the speakers will be set up in a large space, the XVX with the D’Agostino Relentless electronics and the Alexx V with the VTL TL-7.5 and Siegfrieds. The question here is just how well the systems are able to overcome the huge, glass-fronted space and ambient noise generated by visitors to the expansive array of passive display products that occupy the same area. All shows present challenges, but this looks like one of the more extreme situations. I’d love to hear both speakers sounding at their best, but it remains to be seen whether that’s going to happen.
Zellatonand Kharma– Rooms Atrium 4.2 F208 and F227
Here we have two well-established speaker brands breaking with their established traditions – or at least recent norms. Zellaton have introduced speaker models with closed-back enclosures! A speaker that combines their ultra-fast, ultra-transparent drivers with a cabinet that actually generates proper bass weight is going to be an interesting listening experience. Did all that transparency come BECAUSE there was no deep bass, or will it blend seamlessly with a more substantial bottom-end. In the same way that all those listeners seduced by the Martin-Logan CLS struggled to get on with the later, hybrid models, will Zellaton be throwing out the baby with the bathwater? There’s only one way to find out…
Meanwhile, for years, Kharma loudspeakers were pretty much synonymous with ceramic drivers and a cool, hard sound to match. The first – and in many ways the most impressive – Kharma speaker I heard was the Exquisite Reference 1B, it’s novel white ceramic bowl midrange (this was a good few years back) standing out like approaching headlights on an unlit road. Well, it’s all change and the latest Exquisite models feature carbon-fibre drivers and rumours abound of a musical and sonic facelift to match the technological switch. This is definitely a speaker line I’ll be checking out.
